Group members

Post-Doctoral Researchers

Harpreet Kaur

Harpreet is from India, and completed her MSc in Chemistry from Panjab University, Chandigarh, India in 2015. She obtained her PhD from Indian Institute of Technology, Mandi, India in 2022. During her PhD, she mainly worked on the multifunctional metal-organic frameworks for the wastewater treatment. She joined PAW group as a research fellow and will be working on development of porous solids (MOFs & Zeolites) for the direct capture of CO₂ from the air (DAC). Harpreet enjoys cooking, travelling and exploring new places.

Ruxy Chitac

Ruxy is from Romania and completed her MChem in Chemistry at St Andrews (2019). She started working on zeolites during her 4th year project (2017-18) when she joined the group for the first time. She started her PhD in August 2019, after a year of computational chemistry in Prof. Sharon Ashbrook’s group. Her PhD work focused on zeolite synthesis and she collaborated closely with Johnson Matthey throughout her project. In June 2023, she transitioned to a PostDoc role in the group and she now works with new collaborators, Orbital Materials. Ruxy enjoys cooking and baking (and sharing her bakes with the group). She loves reading or playing boardgames in her spare time.

PhD students

Elliott Bruce

Elliott is from Edinburgh, Scotland and graduated with an MChem in Chemistry from the University of St Andrews (2017). In his final year project, he studied guest-host interactions in paramagnetic MOFs under Prof. Sharon Ashbrook. Elliott joined the Wright group for his PhD in September 2017, with his research focusing on the synthesis and characterisation of zeolites, for application in gas adsorption and catalysis. Elliott’s PhD is jointly funded by the EPSRC and Johnson Matthey.

Qian Jia

Qian is from China and received her master degree from Wageningen University (2018). In her master project, she did an internship with Auabattery (the Netherlands) working for an EU project (BAoBaB) about blue battery. Qian joined the Wright Group in 2019 when she started her PhD. Her research will be focused on MOFs design, synthesis and their applications in mixed matrix membranes for carbon capture. The research work is carried out by collaborating with Prof. Maria-Chiara Ferrari’s group at University of Edinburgh.

Soneni Ndlovu

Soneni is from South Africa and completed her MChem Chemistry with Study in Industry from the University of Sheffield (2020). She spent one year (2018-2019) working at Scott Bader Ltd, Wollaston, Wellingborough, developing oil thickeners during her industrial placement year. Soneni started her PhD on MOFs as bifunctional catalysts in organic synthesis under the joint supervision of Professor Wright and Professor M. Clarke in August 2020. Her PhD is jointly funded by EPSRC and GSK. Soneni enjoys a good laugh, jogging and tasting food from different cultures.

Malavika Manoj

Malavika is from India and completed her Integrated M.Sc. in Chemistry from ISERC, Visva-Bharati University (2022). During her final year, as part of her dissertation, she worked on the synthesis and reliability studies of gas sensors in the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. She started her PhD in September 2022, under the joint supervision of Professor Wright and Professor Ashbrook. Her work focuses on understanding the structure of zeolite frameworks. She also works closely with her collaborators in Johnson Matthey. Malavika enjoys cooking, going on walks and watching movies in her spare time.